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Is Penmanship Dead?

misakyramisakyra
edited February 2009 in Everything Else
This article suggests that it is.

For the most part, I disagree with the author. I think that knowing how to read and write in cursive is a skill that should be preserved, though I do agree that it should come second to keyboarding at this point.

It occured to me that if students were no longer taught how to read and write in cursive, it has the potential for some pretty far-reaching societal effects; namely, the loss of the signature. If you can't write in cursive, you can't sign your name, which makes you unable to endorse legal documents, or even make purchases on credit.

As an aside, her idea of a quick digital transcription of the Declaration of Independence made me bristle a little. Sure, the words retain their power in block print, but the thought of a person standing in front of the original and not being able to read it makes me sad for them.
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Comments

  • StarfoxStarfox
    If you can't write in cursive, you can't sign your name, which makes you unable to endorse legal documents, or even make purchases on credit.
    How many signatures have you seen that actually look like the name of the person?
  • misakyramisakyra
    How many signatures have you seen that actually look like the name of the person?
    Several, including my own. And though your handwriting will eventually take on a distinctive style, every adult started by learning the basic letter forms as a child.
  • RymRym
    I think that knowing how to read and write in cursive is a skill that should be preserved
    Preserved, like calligraphy, but definitely not taught generally. It has no use in the modern world outside of art and hobby.
    It occured to me that if students were no longer taught how to read and write in cursive, it has the potential for some pretty far-reaching societal effects; namely, the loss of the signature.
    Signatures have zero relevance in the modern world. They provide no security, are not verifiable, and are generally useless.
    If you can't write in cursive, you can't sign your name
    Most people have either an indecipherable scribble or, as I'm seeing more commonly, simply print a signature. There is no requirement to use script in a signature, nor is any meaningful security added by it.
    As an aside, her idea of a quick digital transcription of the Declaration of Independence made me bristle a little. Sure, the words retain their power in block print, but the thought of a person standing in front of the original and not being able to read it makes me sad for them.
    As an aside, her idea of a quick digital transcription of the Rosetta Stone/Magna Carta/Dead Sea Scrolls made me bristle a little. Sure, the words retain their power in block print, but the thought of a person standing in front of the original and not being able to read it makes me sad for them. ^_~

    Besides, most people can read script without special training, albeit slowly. Requiring its teaching from the perspective of historical document appreciation is tantamount to requiring that everyone learn ancient Greek.
  • CremlianCremlian
    Cursive should die in a fire for all I care. People who write scientific observations in cursive are the bane of my existence. I remember in 3rd grade being told that everyone who is an adult writes in cursive, only to learn that hardly anyone who writes does so in cursive. Fuck you third grade teacher :-p
  • AprecheApreche
    Helvetica killed the fountain pen.
  • misakyramisakyra
    As an aside, her idea of a quick digital transcription of theRosetta Stone/Magna Carta/Dead Sea Scrollsmade me bristle a little. Sure, the words retain their power in block print, but the thought of a person standing in front of the original and not being able to read it makes me sad for them. ^_~
    Heh, pwnd.

    Okay, fair enough. Not teaching script isn't going lead us back into the dark ages, as she isn't suggesting that we stop teaching kids to read. I still don't think that it's as useless a skill as she suggests, but that is probably coming from the fact that I enjoy hand-writing things.
  • Nine BoomerNine Boomer
    When I write with a pen, my handwriting turns into a mess of print and cursive. Some letters are joined together depending on the flow and how quickly I'm writing. I was told that writing in cursive makes you write faster, but I think doing what I do is fast enough without relearning how to write.
  • Kate MonsterKate Monster
    edited February 2009
    Cursive is dying, why prop it up unnaturally when there is so little class time and so much to learn? I think most in the forum agree that the education needs to be re-vamped/overhauled to reflect modern needs. This is one tiny example of how we can/are doing just that.
    Post edited by Kate Monster on
  • ErwinErwin
    edited February 2009
    I do not know if penmanship is dead yet. Most of my professors dol have a beautiful penmanship when it comes to explain something in the whiteboard. Granted most of their lectures are done by power point presentation. Also, I guess the writing protocol is different depending of where you are from. I started writing back in kindergarten and they thought me to write in cursive in the way I felt more comfortable with. Man, I still remember how I learned to write.
    My teacher would give us a small graph paper that had samples on the top of the paper, each sample would occupy a single square. Then we had to fill all the squares of the small graph paper, well not all of them we had to leave one space in between letters or numbers.
    Them when I got into first grade we would get special writing books similar to this one. The capital letters would cover the whole height of the line, and we decided how big our the size of our lower case letters with the help of the sky blue lines. However, the ones that I used were black and the sky blue lines were thinner than the ones of the capital letters. I do not know why but I like writing in cursive when I do poetry or I am writing a small story. I only write technical stuff in the computer.
    Also if you enjoy writing with a fountain pen this forum has a bunch of information.
    Post edited by Erwin on
  • DkongDkong
    Cursive is pretty much dying. I write in a mix of cursive and printing (most of my capital letters are print, the rest is usually cursive). I know maybe 3 or 4 other people who write in cursive. Most people don't even remember it.

    I think it does need to go the way of calligraphy.
  • ......
    I am a complete failure when it comes to writing in script. Some capital letters I can do, but any attempts to write more in script only results in even more unreadable lines than my already crappy handwriting.
  • kiwi_birdkiwi_bird
    I only write in script.
  • ErwinErwin
    Script comes unnatural for me, is as if I were writing with my left hand while being right handed.
  • lackofcheeselackofcheese
    Well, not everyone will have a laptop in class, so it's still important that people be able to take notes quickly and efficiently. Cursive tends to be faster, but as long as people are able to write to a sufficient standard of speed and readability, they should not be forced to conform to a specific approach.
  • RymRym
    Cursive tends to be faster,
    If you're taking so many notes that writing speed matters, you're doing it wrong.
  • ZeehatZeehat
    you're doing it wrong.
    How do you suppose then, for example, you take notes in class?
  • FunfetusFunfetus
    When I was in school, we still spent a lot of time learning cursive, but I've never written anything in cursive but my signature (which hardly counts as letters) since I left high school, and at this point, I don't remember how to write a lot of the letters, particularly the capitals. Cursive is definitely no longer relevant in most people's lives, and we probably shouldn't waste too much time teaching it to kids.
  • RymRym
    How do you suppose then, for example, you take notes in class?
    You should write little more than a handful of succinct bullet points. If you require anything more substantial, you'd be better served by simply reading a text or transcript.
  • AprecheApreche
    How do you suppose then, for example, you take notes in class?
    Don't. I never ever took a single note in any class ever. I have a diploma from college.
  • TheWhaleSharkTheWhaleShark
    Well, not everyone will have a laptop in class, so it's still important that people be able to take notes quickly and efficiently. Cursive tends to be faster, but as long as people are able to write to a sufficient standard of speed and readability, they should not be forced to conform to a specific approach.
    Well, I think the point of script is to allow for faster writing while maintaining legibility. You can write faster than cursive would allow, but you lose legibility.

    My handwriting is a blend of some cursive with standard print. I connect e's to other letters, for example. When I get going, though, my handwriting is essentially illegible. That's why we type.
  • lackofcheeselackofcheese
    edited February 2009
    I've mostly stopped taking notes at all, to be honest.
    However, there are instances where you're provided with very little material except for what you write down yourself, in which cases I think you might want to do a lot of note-taking. That doesn't really tend to happen to me, and plus I really don't need that much material to get top marks, which is why I get by just fine without note-taking. However, I think people doing different degrees might have more of a problem. Arts students, for example, probably have more need for note-taking.

    I just think there needs to be some requisite standard of speed and legibility, style aside.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • KoholintKoholint
    How do you suppose then, for example, you take notes in class?
    Don't. I never ever took a single note in any class ever. I have a diploma from college.
    How exactly did you study for tests?
  • SailSail
    A lot of the time, if you're taking notes then you're not really paying attention. You're writing down what the teacher is saying as opposed to digesting it and actually learning it.
  • omegafinalomegafinal
    edited February 2009
    I remembered what my teachers in elementary school, "learn cursive, because everyone in high school and college use them!"

    ...but when I got there, it's now 12-point Ariel or Helvetica, double spaced.

    Okay, now being serious. You mentioned the "loss of the signature". Sure, maybe making as pretty as John Hancock's, but nowadays seeing people signing in cursive is really rare from my experience, and my signature resembles something out of wall graffiti. As for cursive and penmanship itself, I just don't give a damn about it; if you can write it, fine. It's now dead as a mean of practical writing since word processing came around, and I only use it to compliment a piece of art or something.
    Post edited by omegafinal on
  • StarfoxStarfox
    How exactly did you study for tests?
    Study? What does that mean?
  • DkongDkong
    edited February 2009
    How do you suppose then, for example, you take notes in class?
    Don't. I never ever took a single note in any class ever. I have a diploma from college.
    How exactly did you study for tests?
    I think I can speak for Scott on this one, since I, too, also rarely take notes in class. Lackofcheese points out a good reason to take notes, which is about the only time I ever do. Sail pointed out a good reason to not take notes, and that tends to be my reasoning for when I don't take notes.

    Anyhow, as for actually studying. Some of my teachers post powerpoints online. Also, reading the book and any handouts that were given out helps.
    Post edited by Dkong on
  • IrascibleIrascible
    How do you suppose then, for example, you take notes in class?
    Don't. I never ever took a single note in any class ever. I have a diploma from college.
    How exactly did you study for tests?
    I think I can speak for Scott on this one, since I, too, also rarely take notes in class. Lackofcheese points out a good reason to take notes, which is about the only time I ever do. Sail pointed out a good reason to not take notes, and that tends to be my reasoning for when I don't take notes.

    Anyhow, as for actually studying. Some of my teachers post powerpoints online. Also, reading the book and any handouts that were given out helps.
    It warms my heart to see the true slacker way of life alive and well.

    Like most people in the thread I write in a mixture of cursive and standard script but it has always really irked me that I never learned proper penmanship, maybe it's dying but I'd like to believe that if I at least made an attempt to learn it (despite my primary school teachers thinking cursive was on the way out) then other people could.
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    edited February 2009
    Sorry, but, as of right now, reading and writing cursive is still somwhat of a requirement. Try signing your will in printed capital letters and see if that works out for you. Do you sign the lease for your apartment or the mortgage for your house? Have you ever had to write a note for a secretary when there was no computer nearby? What if your boss writes a note for you on a sticky note? What if your boss edits something you've written? How about a police report? A witness statement? Do you ever write a check or is that declasse as well? Oh no - script is dead because we've had good computers for nearly twenty years! Try working in a job that requires you to read medical records without knowing how to read cursive.

    Hey - maybe you missed a day of class. I know you think you're so smart you don't need to take notes, but what if you want to use someone else's notes in order to see what happened that day? Probably not, because the class is unimportant, your grade is unimportant, it's unimportant whether or not you graduate . . . because, of course, you're so fucking smart that you shouldn't even be in school to begin with.

    Gee, you know, as long as we're talking about what's dead, maybe we should just admit that grammar is dead too. No one complies with the rules anymore. We should all just revert to LOLcat and l33t. Arithmetic is probably dead too. I mean, we all have calculators, don't we? We can just forget teaching kids to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. There's no use for any of that boring stuff anymore. In fact, reading is probably dead too. If you really want to raed a book, you can find an audio version of it, as long as you can read enough to point and click on the right boxes. In fact, maybe they should replace the words in those boxes with little picture glyphs. I guess you'd still need to learn the alphabet, unless you come out of the womb knowing how to type. Maybe the alphabet is dead too, and we should start making keyboards with picture glyphs as well.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    Yay! Inflammatory comments are so great for furthering intelligent discussion.
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    edited February 2009
    Yay! Inflammatory comments are so great for furthering intelligent discussion.
    Sorry, but I'm not going to read your comment because reading is dead. Maybe you can call me on Skype and just tell me what you want to say.

    What's that? I'm inflammatory? Oh, and the people who can't read and write are the reasonable ones? Oh, now I get it.

    Seriously - if you can't read or write script, you are, at best, semi- literate. End of story.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
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